Wandbreaker
by rthstewart
Summary: In which the Just King breaks a girl's heart and is turned to stone and the High King saves the day with magic Sellotape. Another short tale in the Commoner Royalty series, everybody lives, nobody dies AU.


**Wandbreaker**

In which the Just King breaks a girl's heart and the High King saves the day. Another short tale in the Commoner Royalty series, everybody lives, nobody dies AU

* * *

Emma had stayed up too late. She and Papa and Mum and Johnny had all spent Christmas Day night at Aunt Susan's house. She'd shared a bed with cousin Julia and the two of them read their new Christmas books under the covers with a torch. Mum and Eustace had just gotten back from New York and the best Christmas present ever had been for them to be together. Mum had brought new _Nancy Drew_ books, too.

Later, though, it would all be very dreary. They'd be off to Cowley. They would go to a police station and Papa would visit all the soldiers who had been in the Ox & Bucks with him during the War and see the families of the men who had died. Last year they helped serve a meal to the men at the motor works factory and they'd already been to Cowley before Christmas to give away boxes to the families. Aunt Susan and Uncle Edmund would spend the day at the Oxford Committee shop and count shoes or something. Papa would shake the hand of every person in Cowley and Jill and Mum would write down everything that was a problem and talk to the mothers, shopkeepers, barkeeps, teachers, and vicars. Aunt Lucy and Aunt Miriam would look down children's throats and feel foreheads and ask about immunisations. They would go into house, after house, after house, and have tea and biscuits with strangers or a glass at the pub and she had to be very good and quiet and it was _so_ dull. Papa would sometimes climb ladders to nail things back together or fix an old lady's squeaky gate.

The problem was Mum and Papa. They weren't glamourous like movie stars the way Aunt Susan and Uncle Robert were, but Mum and Papa were very tall and blonde and _nice _and everyone wanted to talk to them, _all the time, _and they never said _no_ to anyone_, ever._ She was very proud _to be_ their daughter but Emma did get tired of all the things she had to do because she _was_ their daughter.

After, at least they would get to all go to Russell House and spend the weekend there and get very, very dirty in the barn and explore the attics and cellars. Aunt Lucy said to be sure to look in every spare room very, very carefully and to check every closet because you never knew if it might take you to Narnia or somewhere else. Eustace, Jill and Mrs. Kwong would make wonderful, odd food.

But right now it was much too early on Boxing Day morning and she was sitting next to Julia and both of them were yawning into their breakfast fry up. Papa, Aunt Susan, and Uncle Robert were reading the morning papers and the boys were being very loud in the playroom because Mum was showing them how to hit things with hammers and telling them about cannibal dinosaurs.

The telephone started ringing.

"Who would be so uncivilised as to call so early on Boxing Day?" Uncle Robert asked.

"Edmund for one," Papa said.

"Or Lucy," Aunt Susan added.

"Emma, dear, would you?" Julia had put her head down on the table, almost into her toast, and fallen back asleep.

"Of course, Aunt Susan." It always made Emma feel very grown up to answer the telephone, especially in someone else's home and Aunt Susan was very particular about good manners.

She got up and went to the telephone on the wall. "This is the Walker home," she said into the receiver. "This is Emma Pevensie speaking."

She heard very loud crying.

"Hello?"

"It's Aunt Miriam, Emma. Happy Boxing Day. Could you…."

The wailing voice of her young cousin, Helen, screeched out from the telephone. "I want UNCLE PETER!" Emma had to hold the phone away from her ear because Helen was crying so loudly.

"Aunt Miriam is everyone…"

"We're fine, dear. It's…"

"IT'S NOT FINE!" Helen sobbed. "UNCLE PETER HAS TO MAKE IT BETTER!"

Emma listened as Aunt Miriam talked fast and then she had to hang up in the middle of the sentence because baby Daniel had just blown his nappy clean off his bottom.

"Is everyone alright?" Aunt Susan asked as Emma carefully put the telephone receiver back in its cradle.

"No," she said, after thinking about it. "It's very serious and Papa you need to go to Uncle Edmund's house right now."

Everyone got very quiet. Mum came into the kitchen, carrying Johnny under her arm like a rugby ball. Johnny loved it when people handled him like sporting equipment.

"What happened?" Papa asked, rising from his seat and looking worried. Uncle Robert was getting up, too.

"Cousin Helen is very upset because she was trying to put a spell on Uncle Edmund and he smashed Tinkerbell's wand."

Emma didn't think it was very nice when Papa and Aunt Susan started laughing.

ooOOoo

She and Papa drove over to Uncle Edmund's house. Papa had his tool box. Emma was worried because she knew how she would feel if a new Christmas toy broke on Boxing Day, like if Papa had stepped on a dolly by accident and hurt her, or if Johnny had eaten pages of a new book.

Papa's face was still twitching with smiles and laughing. It bothered her because Papa was usually so good to other people and very kind and this seemed mean.

_Speak your mind, Emma_, Mum would say. _In this family, if you don't speak up they will run you over on their way to doing something monstrously clever and important._ _Use it or lose it! _

"Papa?"

"Yes, Emma?"

She took a deep breath for courage like Aunt Lucy taught her. "You shouldn't laugh at Helen over Tinkerbell's broken wand. She'll be upset. Even more upset."

Papa glanced at her as they turned a corner. "I won't laugh at her. I know Peter Pan is important to her and I hope I can fix Tinkerbell's wand. Edmund, however, is another matter. We will all laugh at him."

"But why is it funny that Uncle Edmund smashed Tinkerbell's wand? That doesn't seem funny to me. Does he not like fairies?" She wondered if this was another of those strange family things, like that no one in the family liked otters, and that they were all very fond of cats and dogs, and made jokes about bad, stinky cooking.

Her father smiled again. "I am certain it was an accident, Emma. Edmund would never do something hurtful to Helen intentionally. It is funny because this is not the first wand Edmund has smashed."

She supposed that might be funny but she hoped the fairy wasn't mad that Uncle Edmund broke her wand. If she was mad, she might have put a bad spell on Uncle Edmund. "Did Uncle Edmund break a fairy wand? Were you able to fix it?"

"No, I did not fix it. Do you remember the stories of the White Witch?"

"Oh, yes!" Emma exclaimed. "The Narnia story about the Always Winter and Never Christmas Witch?" She was a _very_ evil Queen, worse even than the evil Queens in Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

"The very same. There was a great battle and your Uncle very bravely fought his way through a line of evil folk and smashed the White Witch's wand."

Emma shivered a little for the excitement. "Was the day won? Did Aslan come?"

"It was and he did."

Emma was going to ask something but she forgot because she had to cover her mouth and yawn.

"You were up too late reading?"

"Yes, Papa. _Pippi Longstocking_ is so wonderful!"

"Perhaps you can nap on the way to Cowley. We have a busy day ahead."

She yawned again and that feeling from breakfast of being very put upon came back.

_Speak your mind, Emma._

"Why are we the ones who always have to go to Cowley, Papa? Can't we just stay at home and read our books and play with our new toys the way other families do? Or just go straight to Russell House?" Emma knew she was whinging, but she was tired and she really didn't want to go be kind to all the strangers and poor people.

"No, Emma, we can't."

"It's because they are your con…" She fumbled over the big word. "Constitch…"

"Constituency. Certainly the good people of Cowley voted for me and so I must serve them. But we would do these things even if I was not their MP."

She felt herself starting to cry and it was a terrible bother because she had forgotten her hankie and was so tired. Mummy would always have a clean handkerchief but she was back at Aunt Susan's getting everyone ready for the day. Emma sniffed on her tears since she didn't want to blub on the sleeve of her new, very pretty coat. Her old coat was going to cousin Julia and then to Helen. She knew the children who they would see today did not have new coats or books at all, and she was grateful, truly. But mostly she was just tired that they had to do things for other people, _again, _because it seemed like what other people needed never, ever ended.

Papa kept one hand carefully on the steering wheel and pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket with the other. He handed it to her.

"Thank you, Papa." Emma blew her nose and carefully folded up the square. She would wash it herself.

"Can I tell you another Narnia story?"

She rubbed her eyes and nodded. "Yes, please." Some Narnia stories were lovely; they often made you think hard. They usually helped.

Papa stopped at a sign and then started driving again.

"There was a boy name Cyrus. He was a Satyr. Do you know what Satyrs look like?"

"Goat people? With horns?"

"Yes. Cyrus was very sad because his father died in a great battle and he had no mother."

She knew many parents had died during the War. Hitler had killed every person in Aunt Miriam's family. She felt very sorry for poor Cyrus. "He must have been very scared."

"He was. So Cyrus did what scared boys and girls often do and climbed a tree and wouldn't come down."

"Goats climb trees?!" She could not imagine such a thing. The goats at Russell House just ate your clothes and hair ribbons and butted you in the stomach.

"Satyrs are not quite like goats but they do climb trees very well. And your mother has seen goats in trees in Africa."

If there were trees, Emma knew what happened next. "So when Cyrus was in the tree, Aunt Lucy climbed up to bring him down?"

"She did. Cyrus told us he was worried about who would take care of him without a mother or a father."

"What did you do, Papa?"

"I told Cyrus that I would be a very poor King if I could not be sure that he would be taken care of and always have a home with people who loved him. I feel that duty more than ever, Emma."

Papa waited their turn in the roundabout. They were almost to Uncle Edmund's house.

Emma understood, of a sort, but it didn't "hold up" as Mum would say. "Papa, this isn't Narnia and you aren't a King. Queen Elizabeth is our Queen. And there aren't any Satyrs in England."

They started driving again.

"I have no crown, Emma, but these are my people all the same, just as Cyrus was. Aslan gave us the great gift of Narnia and we would be very mean if we did not share that gift with others."

Emma smoothed the sleeve of her new, pretty blue coat and thought about the lovely stack of books by her bed.

"I'll try to share my gifts more, Papa. I might fall asleep, though."

"Maybe you could read from your new books to the children we meet."

Emma wasn't sure if she wanted to share like that. Maybe next year. She might bring some of her old books and then she could read them in the car.

They drove down the dark street where Uncle Edmund and Aunt Miriam lived. Papa stopped the car in front of the brightly lit house. It was decorated with Christmas hollies (the family always joked about hollies, too) and there was a big Star of David on the door. The menorah was in one window and you could see the Christmas tree in the other. Emma was always envious because her cousins got presents on Hanukkah _and_ Christmas. Aunt Miriam also made delicious latkes, rugelach, and, her favourite, _sufganiyot_, which were soft pastries filled with jam and dusted with icing sugar. She and all her cousins liked Aunt Miriam's Hanukkah food much, much more than mince pies and pudding.

They were just getting out of the car when the front door of the house banged open and Helen came running out, still in her dressing gown and no slippers. Helen was a lot like Aunt Lucy and lost her shoes _all the time_.

"Uncle Peter!" Helen sobbed and threw her arms around Papa's legs.

Aunt Miriam was in the doorway with baby Daniel. "Thank you so much, Peter. Good morning, Emma. Thank you both for coming!"

Emma held out her arms and Aunt Miriam gave her Daniel to hold. His nappy was clean but he was a little smelly.

"Uncle Peter! You have to save Daddy!" Helen wailed. "And Tinkerbell's wand!"

Papa looked at Aunt Miriam. "Edmund…?"

"Is fine," Aunt Miriam said.

"He's _not_!" Helen cried.

It was hard getting into the house because Helen was wrapped around Papa's legs so he was hobbled like a horse. With Helen clinging to him, Papa stumbled after Aunt Miriam into the drawing room. Emma followed them, bounced Daniel on her shoulder, and hoped his nappy stayed on. He liked to be tossed about even more than Johnny did but she wasn't quite strong enough and she didn't want to drop him on his head.

The house was very untidy, but Aunt Miriam's and Uncle Edmund's house often was. There were always books, papers, tea cups, and toys strewn about, cat hair all over everything, and unmade beds. Aunt Susan said it was because Uncle Edmund needed not just a wife, but a full-time staff and a Tiger to manage him.

At the entry to the drawing room, Emma started and stared. There was a strange man standing in the middle of the room! He was wearing a long black robe and had a white wig on top of his head. He had a wooden play sword in his hand.

Daniel squealed and laughed when he saw the odd person who wasn't a stranger at all.

"Uncle Edmund!" Emma exclaimed. "You look funny!" He was wearing his barrister robe and wig.

"I was supposed to be a frightening hag and not funny at all," Uncle Edmund said. "Peter, thank you…"

"I turned you to stone!" Helen cried. She peeled off of Papa and stomped her foot at her father. "You aren't supposed to talk!"

"Right then," Uncle Edmund said. He leaned on his wooden sword. "Mum's the word."

"You're stone!" Helen shrieked again. "You can't move until I do the spell and I can't because…." Helen started sobbing and held up her fairy wand. It was bent almost in half in the middle and the star end was hanging down all limp like a sad dog's tail. The gay ribbons looked a little gray from being held so much. "Papa broke Tinkerbell's wand and now I can't turn him back so he'll be stone _forever_!"

Emma tried to sort through that and thought maybe Helen was a little confused.

"I see," Papa said. Emma was glad he sounded very serious and wasn't funning Helen at all. He stooped down to kneel on the floor to look to Helen. "May I have Tinkerbell's wand?"

Helen gave a big sniff and handed the bent wand to Papa. "Can you fix it, Uncle Peter? I don't want Daddy to be stone forever, even if he did break Tinkerbell's wand. It _was_ an accident. We were very excited in the heat of battle."

"That _can_ happen," Papa said. "It is very difficult to keep one's head when engaging the enemy." He looked at Uncle Edmund. "Most especially whilst doing battle with evil, wicked, ugly Hags."

Uncle Edmund raised his wooden sword and twirled it like drum major in a parade. "I _am_ armed, my brother and King."

"And _I_ have the tool box and you are still turned to stone." Papa carefully examined Tinkerbell's wand from one end to another. "What company of Narnia did you lead, Captain Helen?"

"The Fairies, of course!" Helen said, sounding like Papa was thick to not know that.

"Uncle Peter, do you suppose the magic Sellotape might be the right tool?" Aunt Miriam asked.

Emma was going to say something about how Sellotape wouldn't need to be magical to repair Tinkerbell's wand but Uncle Edmund put his finger to his lips and winked (even if he was supposed to be stone). So she bounced the baby. "Daniel, I think magic Sellotape is just the thing, don't you?"

Daniel burped and burbled. Uncle Edmund was trying to not laugh. His wig was crooked on his head and he did look very silly with the black barrister robes over his striped pyjamas.

"Right tool for the right job and I think magic Sellotape is just the thing," Papa said, opening his tool box. "First, though, we need to see if we can make Tinkerbell's wand, like the road, straight again."

Emma held her breath and watched as Papa very, very gently straightened the bent wand. It didn't even break.

Helen gave a little gasp. "I knew you could fix it, Uncle Peter!"

Papa was so very, very clever.

Daniel was getting heavy so Emma handed him back to Aunt Miriam. Daniel didn't want to let go of her finger, though, and kept trying to put it in his mouth. He was a cannibal like the dinosaurs – _zeelofisis barry?_ – that Mum and Eustace studied.

"Peter, I have some magic Sellotape in the kitchen if you require it," Aunt Miriam said. She prised Daniel from Emma's finger and tossed him into the air to distract him. Daniel laughed and sounded very jolly. He wasn't a fussy baby, at all.

"I have some, thanks," Papa said and removed the roll from the top tray of the tool box. Papa pulled off a long, sticky strip and began carefully wrapping it around the wand.

Zack came over to investigate. He'd been rubbing up against Uncle Edmund's legs and leaving white hair all over the black robes. Emma pushed Zack away because cat fur and Sellotape weren't good together.

The tape make a crinkling sound as Papa smoothed it over the wand. Zack tried to slide past her and Emma pushed him away again. The cat was just a pest sometimes and got into _everything_. One reason the house was untidy at Christmas was because Zack always climbed the tree and ate the ribbons and tinsel.

Papa held out the wand and Helen took it, very carefully. Her eyes looked very big and her lip was quivering a little.

"Why don't you give it a twirl, Helen?" Aunt Miriam said. "I know you can turn your father back."

Helen stood in front of Uncle Edmund the Hag in the Barrister's Robe and Wig and waved her wand. "Bibbity, bobbity, boo! Stone no more!"

Emma thought that sounded like a spell from Cinderella, not Narnia.

Uncle Edmund didn't move. "Do you think it worked?" he asked.

"Try moving!" Helen said.

Uncle Edmund raised his sword arm. "Ha! It seems I am no longer stone!" He bowed (very nicely – they all did). "Thank you, my lady daughter and Princess, for your service to this humble King."

Helen threw herself forward and hugged her father. "I saved you!"

"You and Uncle Peter, dearest." Uncle Edmund nudged Helen and she spun around and ran into Papa with a hug so hard he almost fell over just as he was closing his tool kit.

"Thank you, Uncle Peter. I _knew_ you could do it."

"You are welcome, Helen. I want you to remember something important next time you turn someone into stone and can't seem to turn them back."

"What!?"

"Breathing on the person will release him from the stone, too."

"Really? I thought only Aslan could do that!"

"Usually that is true," Uncle Edmund said as he took Daniel from Aunt Miriam. Daniel grabbed Uncle Edmund's wig, yanked it right off his head, and stuffed the wig in his mouth. "But love makes the spell work and love is more powerful even than Tinkerbell's wand."

"Also, next time remember that Mummy keeps a supply of magic Sellotape in the kitchen, too," Aunt Miriam said.

ooOOoo

Emma wedged between Mum and Papa in the car all the way to Cowley and slept to the music of their voices.

That afternoon she sat on a dirty floor in cold, tiny flat in Cowley and read to three skinny, pale girls from _Winnie the Pooh_. At first she felt awkward and strange, like she was special because she had a new coat and shiny shoes. Her parents, though, weren't awkward at all. They were sitting at a broken table and talking to all the grownups who stopped by the flat to see them. They were laughing, drinking tea, and she could tell they weren't there because they had to be there and because that was what MPs were supposed to do. Her parents were _happy_ to be sitting at the kitchen table.

Just before she and Aunt Miriam left to visit patients in Cowley, Aunt Lucy had whispered, "Stay sharp, Emma! I think Aslan is about today."

"How will I know if I see him?" Emma whispered back.

"You'll know!"

Emma hadn't seen any cats, but she knew that just because you didn't see Aslan didn't mean he wasn't there. Aunt Lucy said that was so.

As she read aloud about Christopher Robin's North Pole expedition, Emma now was sorry she had been selfish. She should have brought _Pippi Longstocking_ to share with the other girls. They could have read it together and then the four of them could have gone adventuring just like Pippi while the grownups ate their biscuits. Christopher Robin was a boy and not very exciting. So Emma decided to close the book and share Narnia stories instead.

She started with Lucy's quest to make the Dufflepuds and a Magician visible. Once Lucy made Aslan visible, too, and they had a merry feast and the story ended, the girls clapped.

Jane, who was about cousin Julia's age, put her hand on Emma's knee. "Could you tell us another one?!"

"Yes! Would you like to hear how Jill saved the Prince? Or, about the dragon who became a boy?"

"Could we hear them all?"

"Of course! As long as they keep talking," and Emma pointed at the grownups going on and on and _on_, "I'll keep talking, too."

The kitchen was glowing very brightly, like the candles on Aunt Miriam's menorah. Her parents both smiled at her and Papa put an arm around Mum's shoulder.

For the first time, being with other people on Boxing Day didn't feel like something you had to do, like brushing your teeth or picking up your toys before bed. If Sellotape was magical, she supposed this might be, too. She felt warm and there was a lovely smell in the flat.

"Ohh!" Jane said. "Did you feel that?!" They all breathed in the delicious scent.

"It's magic," Emma told her. "Aslan is on the move and telling me to share the next story."

The four of them all closed into a tighter circle. They held hands.

Emma cleared her throat. "Once upon a time there was a wicked Snake Queen who kidnapped a Prince…"

* * *

Yes, yes, rather sweet, and perhaps too sweet for your tastes. 'Tis the season and love for one another and for our children is especially poignant at the moment.

A huge thanks to Adaese who suggested Edmund breaking his daughter's fairy wand on Boxing Day and the invention of Peter's constituency in Cowley – East Oxford.

May you be at peace.


End file.
